The Shiya Project

The Shiya Project is centred on the exploration of settlement sites located in the Sur region, and in particular in the area of Shiya. Since 2025, the project has been investigating a site known as SHI-4, marked by a series of multicellular stone structures and dated to the 4th millennium BCE, representing a type of settlement quite widespread in this coastal area of the Sharqiyah region, between Sur and Ras Al Jinz, but which had never been the object of in-depth investigations before. Extensive survey activities carried out in 2023 by Time of Magan had detected several such sites, in addition to those identified by P. Biagi in the exploration of the area during the 80s, all located at the embouchure of a wadi. 

Preliminary survey at SHI-4 documented over 80 preserved dry-stone structures built from angular stones without mortar, often laid directly on bedrock. Four main architectural types were identified: 

1. Complex multi-unit structures with interconnected rooms, which abut bedrock outcrops and exhibit openings facing away from the sea, likely covered with a roof in perishable materials, such as interwoven shrubs or leather.   

2. Mono-cellular units characterized by a single large room (c. 4 m in diameter) containing a smaller internal circular feature, which may have had a storage function, and probably roofed with perishable materials. 

3. Simple mono-cellular units located along the edges of the wadi, lacking internal features but presenting well-defined doorways marked by two large standing stones, and built with large vertical blocks, of a much larger size than the stones used in other constructions.   

4. Multi-space structures combining a main rectangular room (c. 6x4 m) with a smaller circular annex (c. 2 m in diameter). They appear of a much larger size compared to types 1, 2 and 3, but they display a much smaller number of stones sparse in the surrounding area, suggesting they had a superstructure made of perishable materials.